Shifting and gapping machine embroidery design

Question: In the my machine embroidery application program (Brother Pe-Design) embroidery designs looks great but when wi start the embroidery not soo great. The fill stich does not go meet the outline.

Answer: Often times resizing a design -- especially a design that has satin stitches (long stiches over 5 mm) or large embroidery blocks of pattern fills -- will result in gapping. It's best to use embroidery designs at the size that we design them; editing can cause all sorts of strange problem.

If you have not resized or edited the machine embroidery design, then check your fabric and stabilizer combination. Shifting and gapping (aka "poor registration") is most often caused by a fabric and stabilizer mismatch. We see it consistently occur when pairing tear-away or water-soluble stabilizers with a light fabric (quilter's cotton), a weak fabric (terrycloth), or a stretchy fabric (denim, Jersey knit). And, sometimes using a poor-quality tear-away stabilizer will cause shifting and gapping even when used with the sturdiest of fabrics. If you see shifting and gapping in your mfchine embroidery, and are using a tear-away stabilizer or water-soluble stabilizer, switch to a cutaway stabilizer. We use a medium-weight (2.5 ounce) with most fabrics, and get perfect registration every time. If you are already using cutaway stabilizer, then review the above-referenced article to check for the other possible causes (hoop obstruction, bobbin tension, fabric hooped loosely or not at all).

You fabric probably is very stretchy and needs a medium to heavy cutaway stabiliser. You need to quickly establish anchoring stitches between the fabric and the stabiliser. If you digitized this machine embroidery that helps minimise fabric shift and is done by running a loose density underlay over the entire design. Stitching gaping is a sign of needing extra underlay to provide support for the fill stitches. Increasing stitch density just increases the push pull affects. You have to instruct the cutaway stabilizera jump is before the machine trims it and you do that in the machines mode settings. If you use professional embroidery software (ex. Tajima Pulse Maestro) it automatically inserts trim codes for those machines with auto trim function. If you are doing lettereing and the first and last stitches are unravelling it could be because the jumps between each letter are too short to trim, so don't trim them. You can manually insert tie ins and tie offs in the Tajima Ambassador design by using the arrow keys on your keyboard to walk through a design slowly and insert stithes where needed. A small triangle of 4 stitches is normally enough to lock threads before a jump and another 4 stitch triangle when restarting. Another cause of fills not meeting outlines is you have failed to create over or underlaps, stitch directions, types, densities, the fabric used and length of stitches, all create push and pull isues. What you see on the screen isn't necessarily what you get when you stitch. If a design looks perfect in stitch simulator view, it will propably be faulty when stitched. Always view your designs in non simulator view, check no boundary of a fill area just butts up to the area next to it. It will gape when stitched.